Awakening
by Diesel-girl81
Summary: Will a chance meeting prove fatal?


"She was raped...beaten...I'm sorry" the attendants voice was soft and soothing.

He held Jack tight to his chest. He pulled his arms around her and rubbed his warmth into her pallid and chilled flesh. He smoothed hair from her face and stroked the apple of her cheek with his callused palm. Reverently he kissed each of her closed eyes and shifted her weight into his lap, cradling her like a child.

"Mr. Riddick?" the voice echoed softly, tugging at the edges of his consciousness.

"Richard?" the spell was broken, he looked up.

"I'm sorry sir, but you'll need to leave her now" the young woman who stood over him motioned towards the door.

"No" his voice tightened and he bristled visibly, muscles tensing.

"Sir..." she pleaded, "please, there is nothing you can do for her now"

He stared deeply into the attendant's face then back at Jack, prone in his lap. He pulled the goggles from his eyes steeling himself against the pain that lanced deep into his brain.

"I'm so sorry Jack...for everything". He took in what he could of her face. Her skin blazed luminous in the light, shades of purple, red and blue. Her radiance burned him, her glow tremendous to his unshielded, sensitive eyes. She looked so fragile. A rose to be crushed so easily in his thick, murdering hands. He carefully laid her down and stood up, donning his goggles.

He stepped close to the attendant, into her shadow. He shudder, muscles jumping crazily beneath his skin "I'll be back for her. Don't....touch her."

"You needn't worry Sir, she'll be buried in the morning , you need not return"

He lunged then, so quick she didn't see him move. He had her on the floor then kneeling in front of him his chest to her back, his shiv to her throat. He pressed it to her wind pipe. She clawed with futile motions at his wrist.

"I said....Don't ....Touch.....Her!" He withdrew the shiv then, stood with another look at Jack and left the room.

Rain pelts down and stings bare shoulders. He paces the streets struggling to keep control. His anger pulses through him like fire. He wills himself to keep demons in check. A voice inside his head pushes itself to the front of his consciousness, a voice he hasn't heard for years. He presses his hands to his temples and squeezes his head between his palms, gritting his teeth. The voice wants nothing more than to enfold the haft of a bone shiv in the palm of his hand and find the sweet spot. He can almost taste the copper on his tongue as he passes it over the wound. In his mind he can feel his victim quiver under his hands and face as life passes to death. Then, when he would have stood and left to slide slowly from his killing high, he sees the body turn beneath his hands. In the back of his mind he knows what he is seeing isn't real. He presses his hands to his eyes, grinding his goggles against his face. _Jack_. Her body lays still, beneath his hands. Her skin pale, drained of life. His hands shake as he gathers her against his chest. The wound in her back gapes and tears as he lifts her. Her skin is stretched tight and gray against her ribs. Her head lolls crazily on her shoulders. Her mouth gapes open, empty eyes staring up at him. _"Riddick...". _Her breath rasps like winter wind in her dead throat. Her eyes roll toward him, white and sightless. _"Riddick...why...". _Her skin stretches tighter and tighter. She begins to crumble beneath his hands. Slabs of dry flesh disintegrate beneath his palms. His fingers sink between her ribs as he clutches her rotting frame to his chest.

"NO!"

His head clears and he finds himself kneeling in the street. He slams his hands against the pavement, shards of glass and debris cut deep into his skin but he takes little notice. Standing, he looks skyward. Rain drives against his face. He peels the goggles from his eyes and lets the rain soothe his battered flesh. He can't erase the images from his mind. But when he closes his eyes he sees her vibrant, full of life. Sees her sitting on her bed, lifting her head and smiling when she sees him enter the room. Always unafraid. From the very beginning, he'd catch her staring, mimicking his looks and the way he moved. Then as she grew older she began to catch his eye. The line of her calf, the flip of her hair the scent of her breath, all the little things that tickled the fancy of a gentler beast within. He was such a fool, he should have done more to protect her. He should have been there when she left the ship. Should have taken the chance to make his feelings a reality. She was the best thing in his life and now she was gone, stolen from him by a street punk fulfilling an urge.

He rakes a callused palm over his face and dons his goggles against the rain shattered glare of the street lights.

"Out of the way bub." The man brushes past, pushing Riddick aside. Riddick stares after him. Drawing his shiv from his belt he follows the man down an alley. He can smell the man: leather, sweat, cologne. He can almost taste the man and the memory of copper on his tongue drives him forward. The voice in his head is screaming now, begging for control. He feels himself succumbing to its power. A monster is reawakening and he is powerless to stop it.

Logan can smell the man behind him, axle grease and death. The man's breathing is light but fast. He walks unhurried but with purpose, strides long and powerful. Logan takes a final pull on the stub of his cigar and grinds it beneath his boot. Casually he turns to stare at the man coming at him and breathes smoke out through his nose. The goggled man freezes at the mouth of the alley.  
  
Logan watches as the dark man pulls a bone shiv from the belt of his pants and begins to enter the alley. Logan snorts through his nose ..._amateur_.


End file.
